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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29459979">I Give My Life To You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/koichi_another/pseuds/koichi_another'>koichi_another</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Second Moon [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T. S. Eliot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angsty Mr. Mistoffelees, Biting, Blood and Injury, M/M, Multi, POV First Person, Present Tense, Swearing, Vampire Mungojerrie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:00:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,644</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29459979</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/koichi_another/pseuds/koichi_another</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mistoffelees wants out of an abusive relationship with Plato. A coincidental meeting with a wounded Mungojerrie just might be the key he needs.</p><p>However, that key opens up a door of unexpected trouble. Jealousy from Plato threatens to bring Mistoffelees' life crashing down, and Mungojerrie's vampiric blood-lust could prove to be equally fatal.</p><p>But hey, like they always say - curiosity killed the cat.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alonzo/Plato (Cats), Mr. Mistoffelees/Mungojerrie (Cats), Mr. Mistoffelees/Plato (Cats)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Second Moon [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Chance Encounter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Phew, this was unexpected. I originally got the idea of Misto meeting a vampire Mungo at a party months ago, but life got in the way and the story was shelved. Then I came back to the concept and tried writing it from a first-person perspective, and the story pretty much wrote itself.</p><p>The musical Heathers was a big inspiration, and I pretty much listened to the amazing Let the Right One In ost all the way through writing, but Animal I Have Become definitely influenced the story the most. It essentially shaped Mungo's conflicting mindset. However, I never would've even thought of writing this in the first place if it wasn't for MistoffLikeKristoff's fantastic Take A Bite series. Please check it out if you haven't. I owe this entire story to them.</p><p>Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading about angsty Mistoffelees and vampire Mungojerrie as much as I enjoyed writing about them!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My life is shit.<br/>
I’m thinking it as I’m walking to the party with him and I’ve been feeling it for the past few weeks. Because I realise now: my life really is shit. I’m not throwing myself a pity party or sulking around for sympathy; I’m simply accepting the way everything’s going for me right now.<br/>
I mean, look at me! I’m working a shitty lower-than-low-paying job as a bloody cashier, life with Plato is hell - the only reason I’m sticking with the asshole and his ever-flared temper is because he puts a roof over my head.<br/>
“Hey, leadfoot, get a move on.” he says from ten feet ahead. I give him the finger (to his back, of course; god forbid I do it to his face) and improve my pace as my mood worsens to an all-time low.<br/>
And another thing - if I wasn’t stuck with him, I wouldn’t be getting dragged to this party. Its bloody awful. Every night, it seems, we’re going to a club or a party thrown by someone Plato knows. And boy, does he know a lot of people. If it were up to me (which, surprise surprise, it isn’t) I’d be sleeping because god only knows I need it.<br/>
“Mistoffelees!” he yells with flaring fury as I reach his side. I’m like a fucking pet, I realise, not for the first time.<br/>
“Yeah,” I say.<br/>
Plato keeps his mouth shut.<br/>
The sound of techno bleeds out into the street and its muffled pounding grows louder as we get closer to the isolated street house. Multicoloured lights flash by the windows, spinning in ever-changing colours before disappearing again.<br/>
Plato starts up the gravel walkway to the open front door. Toms and queens are gathered outside in small groups, but the core of em are inside, if the inaudible mumbles are anything to go off.<br/>
I follow Plato and we step inside.<br/>
Within seconds he’s gone, laughing and shouting something at a group he seems to know. And, like usual, I’m left alone in the doorway of this party where no one I know is even attending.<br/>
In walks a group from behind me and I move out of the way before they knock me to the ground. From what I can tell there are four toms and two queens. Two of the toms and a queen drift over to Plato’s group and the other three go elsewhere.<br/>
I feel way too sober. Yet at the same time, the mere thought of getting drunk makes me feel sick.<br/>
Oh, fuck it.<br/>
I start toward the makeshift bar - a flimsy table set up with a red paper cloth draped over it. A tabby tom is stood behind it, laughing with a couple holding drinks.<br/>
He looks toward me as I near.<br/>
“What’s having?” he asks and I feel compelled to put on a good-mood mask to match his.<br/>
“Beer,” I say. I’m not too versed in the ins and outs of alcoholic beverages. The one word - “beer” - seems to always get me something good, though.<br/>
He places a red cup on the paper cloth-covered table and cracks open a silver can. He pours the entirety of its contents in, and I step away with my drink and a mumbled “thank you.”<br/>
In a single gulp, I down half of the brown frothy liquid. It feels warm going down my throat, comforting. I only have to wait a minute to experience its effect.<br/>
Shit, I think as the room rotates left, right, then steadies itself back to normal. What did I just drink? I look up from my cup, round at the room. No, everything’s back to normal.<br/>
Everything except my stomach. It feels to be performing a full acrobatic routine, spinning and leaping, and with each change I feel the threat of vomit rising higher and higher.<br/>
I’ve been way too sober for way too long, I think and clumsily head for the door, go down the gravel walkway and onto the road. There’s a corner shop near here. It’d take me just five minutes to reach. I’d go in, grab a set of Pepto Bismol and back I’d be at the party within ten.<br/>
Right, I decide. I’ll do it. I mean, why the hell not?<br/>
I’m not even a minute gone when the music from the house has evaporated in the air completely. Before I know it, I’m alone in the dark, with only the sound of leaves brushing against branches to occupy me.<br/>
Not that I’m scared. I love the dark.<br/>
More than halfway there, the shop’s glowing sign in sight, I fall against a brick wall and throw up. It passes quickly enough, but I feel like complete shit after. Even worse than before. There’s still a need for that beautiful pill. My brief journey hasn’t been in vain.<br/>
On the deserted street, with nobody in sight, I step into the modern shop. It’s a brand new fixture by the look of it. Sleek and modern, and tight. It looks as if they had a tiny amount of space to build the place and boy did they make the bloody most of it.<br/>
I pass crisps and drinks (nearly gagging at the sight of em, at the thought of food and drink entering my system) and grab a pink packet off the shelf at the back of the little shop. I’m grateful no vomit got on me anywhere. I can’t think of a single place I could’ve gone to get the smell and stuff off of me.<br/>
To the counter I go, and I pull two pounds out the pocket of my short jeans. The cashier is a middle-aged queen wearing small half-moon glasses. Her attention is locked to a novel and she hardly glances at my weary appearance (thank god. If I look half as bad as I feel I’d bloody well hope no one spares me a check).<br/>
I’m out a minute later, two of the chewy pills already broken up in my mouth. I should’ve taken just one but a second likely wouldn’t kill me. And if it did, well, I wouldn’t be suffering through this god-awful stomach ache.<br/>
What the hell was in that drink anyway? The guy didn’t spike it. I know, because I watched him pour the can. Then what could have--<br/>
My train of thought derails at a sudden pained gasp, and I jump, letting out a tiny squeal.<br/>
The sound came from my right. I look over.<br/>
Five meters from the shop’s glass door is a silhouette slumped against a wall, holding its wrist.<br/>
“Ah! Mmmmmph!” comes another groan of pain. A groan which tells me whoever this is is a tom.<br/>
“You drunk too, mate?” I ask aloud.<br/>
He sucks air through his teeth. “Ow. Ow, ow, fuckin’ ow.”<br/>
He has a cockney accent and is in obvious pain, I note. I walk over to him, cautious. Dunno why. From the sound of it, he’s not in any fit state to mug me.<br/>
Closer, I see he’s a calico. His jeans are ripped in more places than I could possibly count - a stylistic choice - and his grey crop-top is stained with something… dark.<br/>
“I’m… fine.” he says.<br/>
“You don’t sound fine.”<br/>
When I’m less than a foot away, I notice him turn his head in the other direction. Do I really smell that badly of vomit? I bloody well hope not. The thought makes me very embarrassed.<br/>
“Well I am.”<br/>
It’s impossible to get a good look at him in this light. I turn on my phone and point the screen at him. It doesn’t have a built-in torch, so the screen light has to do.<br/>
I gasp. His wrist looks terrible. There’s a ragged wound, spewing blood. He’s tried to end it, I think, almost convinced. Only, with what? Who’d use something so stupidly obtuse and pain-inducing? His wrist looks like it might have been slashed with a giant piece of glass. Certainly no kitchen knife.<br/>
I lean in close, looking at the wound, and the calico is now pushed so far away from me I might be led to believe I carry some terrible awful disease.<br/>
No good just staring at it and causing the poor guy more distress, I decide.<br/>
“Wait right there. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”<br/>
“I don’t want your help,” he calls, but by then I’m already at the shop again. The cashier looks up at me as I barge in, probably wondering what the hell the big fuss is all about.<br/>
“Okay,” I say under my breath. “Okay, gauze. Gauze…” No gauze. If this place had a pharmacy I’d be set, but alas, it doesn’t.<br/>
Instead, I grab a fabric bag they sell at the counter, and a bottle of water. Now the queen has her full attention on me. She looks vaguely shocked by my rush, eyes wide, but doesn’t question. That I’m glad about.<br/>
I set the bottle under my arm and tear open the fabric of the reusable bag, until I have a pair of fabric strips.<br/>
My elbow pushes open the glass door for me, and I return to the place I left the injured tom.<br/>
Now he has his head back against the wall, and I can see his neck and Adam’s apple clearly. His eyes are closed, but his face still winces in pain.<br/>
“I thought I said I was fine,” he says in a heavy cockney accent, eyes still closed. He must have sensed me coming.<br/>
“Glad you didn’t move, at least,” I say, ignoring his comment as I kneel down beside him and take his left injured wrist. To my surprise, he lets me.<br/>
“Oh,” I say, quiet, feeling his icy skin beneath the torn fur.<br/>
God, how much blood has he lost?!<br/>
Well… little, actually. In fact, I do a double-take after looking at his wrist.<br/>
There’s barely a wound there anymore. A long, thin cut, but nothing of the gory mess it was moments ago.<br/>
“How?” I ask, astonished, but he doesn’t answer. The darkness must have given me a completely false impression. But then why would he make such a fuss over an injury the size of a papercut?<br/>
I decide to not linger on the matter, and I dump the water over his wrist. He lets out a short gasp at the contact. Once his arm is damp, I apply the makeshift bandage and tie it with a smaller fabric strip.<br/>
The calico looks at me with the most unimpressed expression plastered over his face.<br/>
“Wow. I’m saved,” he says. “I said I was fine.”<br/>
It’s me who winces this time, my brow creasing out of frustration and puzzlement. “And I thought your wrist was ripped open.”<br/>
He looks at his arm, inspecting my first aid. And before I have the chance to say a single thing, he unwraps the bandage. Then he looks once again at his arm, and pushes it toward me.<br/>
I can’t stop my mouth from dropping open. There’s nothing there. Just dry fur and positively no life-threatening injuries. As a matter of fact, there are no injuries whatsoever.<br/>
“But--” I start, stopping myself almost immediately. Your arm… it was-- the wound was--  Oh, forget it.<br/>
“I’m fine.”<br/>
I look up at his face. He’s still wearing that stupid unimpressed expression.<br/>
All at once, I feel stupid and dramatic and dumb. What was I thinking?<br/>
“Sorry. I’m drunk. I thought you were… I thought-- nevermind.”<br/>
But am I drunk? Why do I feel so level headed? Why isn’t my speech slurred? And why can I understand everything I’m saying right now? I haven’t been knock-out drunk often in my life, but these were always clear identifiers I could register.<br/>
I can feel my face getting warm as I stand up. I don’t even want to look at him, because I feel that if I do, I’ll have a breakdown.<br/>
“Well… thanks?” he says.<br/>
“Yeah,” I say back. I cross the road and make my return to the party.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Second Meeting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Plato, it’s three o’clock in the morning.”<br/>
The dumb fucking idiot is slumped back against a wall, watching me with hooded eyes. He’s drunk, and probably unable to tell who he’s talking to.<br/>
“... Yeah?” he says drowsily as if I’ve just rung a bell for attention and he’s reacting to the sound.<br/>
“Yeah?” I repeat, mocking, knowing that if he was sober my ass would be beaten to hell and back. “Yeah. It is. I want to go home.”<br/>
“But, but… we’re at a party.”<br/>
“You think I can’t fucking tell? You bloody buffoon.”<br/>
His face drops at this, and a hint of fear creeps into his eyes. “D-don’t get mad Tumble.”<br/>
“Well get up off your--” Wait. What did he just say? “What did you just say?”<br/>
He looks blank. Blank as a clean slate I’d just love to smash in half.<br/>
“Tumblebrutus? That Tumble?”<br/>
“T… Tumble?”<br/>
“I’m not Tumble you drunk fool,” I say, taking delight as the words fall out my mouth. I know it sounds bad, but the way he’s treated me makes me regret nothing at all.<br/>
“M…?”<br/>
“Mistoffelees. That’s my name. But I’m not prepared to go down that route. Let’s go.”<br/>
Recognition flashes across his face, and his expression turns to one of drunken anger. “Mistoffelees…” he snarls.<br/>
I shiver. I hate it when he says it like that.<br/>
He throws something at me and I catch it one-handed. It jingles in my palm.<br/>
“We didn’t take the bloody car.”<br/>
“I don’t give a… a fuck. If you want outta here, that’s your… a… your ride out.”<br/>
I drop the useless keys onto his leg where they promptly slide off and onto the floor. Plato doesn’t react. He’s already passed out.<br/>
Goddamnit.<br/>
I’m staying at a hotel tonight. I do not want to be home when he comes in half-sober and pissed. That’s when he’s at his worst.<br/>
I check my wallet. There’s sixty pounds in there, enough for more than one night if necessary.<br/>
Good.<br/>
I’m set. God only knows what he’ll do when he finds me gone, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it.<br/>
I leave the house and turn right down the pitch-black road. There’s a taxi stop I noticed a few hours ago, next to a park not far from here. My destination.<br/>
A few sparse cars pass by. Not many. Enough to let me know the place isn’t entirely deserted though.<br/>
Hardly any time feels to pass before I find a parked black car with a sign hanging by its side door. Just what I’m looking for.<br/>
A car goes by just as I’m about to cross, leaving me on the sidepath for an extra two seconds - all the time I need to hear a quiet whimpering coming from an alley behind me.<br/>
Just my imagination… or is it?<br/>
When the blowing wind dies down, the sound comes louder. It’s somehow-- familiar.<br/>
I know I’ve heard it sometime tonight. Or at least something similar.<br/>
“Hello?” I call out.<br/>
A car passes by, and at that moment, its headlights illuminate a slouched silhouette against the alley wall. The silhouette is holding its arm (what’s with this weird sense of deja-vu?), and the sound of whimpers mingle with that of quiet cries.<br/>
“Hey,” I say, speedwalking to the guy in pain. I already have my phone out and the brightness level on high, pointing it in the direction of…<br/>
Him. The calico tom from earlier.<br/>
“It’s you…”<br/>
He keeps his face turned toward his arm. I get closer and aim the phone screen at his shoulder.<br/>
Just beneath it, across his biceps, is a deep gory wound. A ridiculous amount of blood gushes from it and I touch my own biceps out of reflex.<br/>
“What hap…”<br/>
“I’m… aw’right.” he spits through sobs.<br/>
“Now that’s a damned lie. Let me look.”<br/>
“No!”<br/>
I kneel beside him and put a hand out to his arm. Despite the protest, he doesn’t resist. He turns his body rigidly, awkwardly, adjusting himself so I can look all while keeping his face turned from mine. “It’s… it was s-silver.”<br/>
Yeah-- it’s bad.<br/>
“I need to get you to a doctor.”<br/>
“The knife was--”<br/>
“The knife? What?”<br/>
“Silver. Fuckin’ thing. Had… had to b-be--”<br/>
“You got stabbed?”<br/>
“Ah!” He lets out a pained yelp as I touch the flesh of his arm.<br/>
“Who stabbed you?”<br/>
“I shouldn’t ‘ave tried ta--”<br/>
”Are they still here?”<br/>
“No.”<br/>
Well, that’s great.<br/>
“Listen, there’s a taxi right over there--” I point in the general direction. “-- so let me help you and we’ll get you to a hospit--”<br/>
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you if you take me to one of those,” he growls and I instinctively draw back, almost falling onto my ass. In his voice was something truly intimidating, almost inhuman…<br/>
But what’s he gonna do? Nothing, of course.<br/>
“I’d like to see you try in your state.” I stand, taking him gently by his free arm. He pulls me back to his level with a hard tug.<br/>
“P-please. Don’t.” No longer is there fury in his eyes. Instead, genuine fear.<br/>
“But… I can’t do anything,” I say, my voice squeaky and just above a whisper. It always gets like that when I’m at a loss. “I’m not a-- I don’t know what to do with a wound so deep. Maybe a small cut or something, but…”<br/>
“It’s okay. I just… help me back to my ‘ouse. It’ll heal. I’m-- I’ll be okay.”<br/>
It’ll heal?! This guy really is out of it.<br/>
I laugh. Not because I find the situation funny, but because-- well, what else can I say to him?<br/>
The calico looks at me. “What?”<br/>
“Sorry, sorry,” I say between brief bursts of giggles. “I just don’t know what to… sorry.”<br/>
He looks like a lost child, holding his (badly) injured arm, his face stained with tears. And, like a child, he’s just as stubborn.<br/>
“It ‘int funny.”<br/>
”No, I know. Sorry. Sorry. Just show me the way to where you live. I’ll help you back.”<br/>
We walk in silence for the entire time, all of fifteen minutes. It would probably take closer to five on normal terms, but the calico’s walking speed has been hindered by his injury. Or he’s just being cautious.<br/>
Probably both. I sure as hell wouldn’t be rushing anywhere with a wound as deep as a tape roll.<br/>
A flare of frustration burns deep within me, watching him shuffle up the steps to his detached street house. Not frustration toward him - well, maybe part of it is due to him… actually, maybe all of it - but getting down to brass tacks, it’s on me. I should’ve taken him to the hospital where he could get cleaned up, washed of infection. But the look of fear in his eyes… like looking into the eyes of an innocent rabbit about to be slaughtered, that pleading look. I felt I’d cause him more harm by going against his wishes. (But perhaps I should have if it meant saving his life.)<br/>
No point worrying about it now. He’s had his wish granted.<br/>
“So, guess I’ll go, now,” I say from the sidepath, at the base of the steps which lead to his house. He’s reached the door and is getting the key into the lock.<br/>
I turn and start setting off, back to the taxi stop.<br/>
Then he lets out a frustrated groan.<br/>
Then I hear him fall against the door.<br/>
It takes me less than ten seconds to get to his side and start helping his near-exhausted body up from off the ground.<br/>
“Hey, talk to me,” I tell him and he groans in reply.<br/>
I pick up the door key from his powerless hand and slide it into the lock. Turn it. Push open the door.<br/>
Heaving him up from the ground takes a helluva lot of effort but I get the job done (even through his many yelps of pain) and finally, we’re in the house.<br/>
It’s a nicely decorated place. A bit on the old-fashioned side I guess because most of the decorations in the entrance living room look like they’ve been bought from an antique shop. But if anything, that makes the house feel grand and mansion-like. I never would’ve guessed someone wearing a crop-top and jeans would live here.<br/>
He’s on his feet now (barely), so I guide him to the nearest couch and sit him down before he collapses. There are a few drops of blood on the carpet, but not too many considering. However, cleaning up is the last thing to be focused on.<br/>
“We can’t just leave the wound like that,” I say. A couple of minutes ago I’d somehow managed to forget just how bad it really was, but seeing it now gives me a cold hard reality check.<br/>
“It’ll heal.” He’s half-asleep by the look of it. I wish he’d look a little more alive. I hate the coldness about him now. It’s unnerving.<br/>
“You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re saying. Wait here.”<br/>
There’s no protest as I head through an open doorway into the kitchen.<br/>
I search around for a sewing kit, pulling open every varnished-wood cabinet and drawer until I find what I’m looking for beneath the sink: a little circular disc with multicoloured threads and a pair of needles in the centre. I carry the disc into the living room and put it on a table beside the calico.<br/>
“Right… now what?”<br/>
Water.<br/>
Back in the kitchen, I pour some tap water into the kettle.<br/>
“Cold or hot for washing out wounds…” I mutter aloud. Cold doesn’t seem right. Could infection risk getting in, because of frostbite or something…?<br/>
Probably not, huh? Pretty sure I heard something like that once before but I might be remembering it wrong. Still, warm seems to be the likelier option. I decide I’ll go with my gut feeling.<br/>
I boil it for a few seconds until the water is lukewarm; I pour it into a bowl, grab a towel, and place it in to soak.<br/>
Then I’m back in the living room again.<br/>
The calico isn’t awake. And good thing. I can’t even imagine how he’d react if he saw me coming at him with a needle and thread.<br/>
I take off his shirt with utmost care and drop it to the floor. My breath stops as I wait to see if he stirs.<br/>
He doesn’t.<br/>
Setting his arm on the rest, I slowly bring the dripping towel to his injury. Most of the bleeding has stopped, but still it trickles down him and over my fingers.<br/>
Is the slash smaller than it was a few minutes ago? Now I just have no fucking clue. This whole night has been madness. I’m not even sure about our first meeting outside the corner shop anymore. Like, it felt real as can be. But after all that, all my panicking and hastily buying supplies, there was nothing there after all. No huge jagged wound that I thought I’d seen. (I still find it hard to believe I was that drunk.) The guy must have thought I was nuts back then.<br/>
Ugh, I can’t even recall that scene straight in my head. I had been so embarrassed, so confused…<br/>
That’s not the pressing matter at hand now, Misto.<br/>
I push the thoughts to the back of my mind.<br/>
With the towel, I surgically wet the flesh around the wound, at the edges of the open slash. The towel turns redder with each touch against his fur.<br/>
I let the blood wash off inside the bowl for a minute before starting again. This time I squeeze drops of warm water directly into the wound. I half expect him to wake screaming at the contact.<br/>
But he doesn’t. That’s as good a sign if any to start on the real part of this procedure.<br/>
I thread some brown string through the skinniest needle and move closer to his arm, watching his face all the while.<br/>
The needle tip touches the edge of his open flesh.<br/>
The needle tip punctures his damaged skin.<br/>
And yet he doesn’t scream. I breathe out, realising I’ve been holding my breath for what is likely a dangerously long period. Still, it’s no time to throw a winner’s party yet.<br/>
This is only the first part.<br/>
You’ve got this, Misto, I tell myself, and I thread the needle through the other side of his wound.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Alone Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I wake in darkness, but the crack of light bleeding through the slit in the curtains tells me it’s daytime.<br/>
I must’ve fallen asleep in the armchair across from the couch shortly after finishing up with the calico’s wound because that’s where I am now.<br/>
My eyes adjust to the darkness. The couch is vacant and the spots of blood that dotted the carpet are gone.<br/>
The first thing I do is open the curtains, letting in the midday light.<br/>
What time is it?<br/>
There’s a clock above the kitchen doorway. It reads half-past three.<br/>
Plato will be home by now, wondering where the hell I’ve gotten to. Wondering why his breakfast isn’t there and ready for him. I’ve only ever done this once before, during our three years together - run off and hid. He’d knocked the wind out of me because I had accused him of fucking someone else.<br/>
Holy shit had he been mad.<br/>
When I came back (I’d gone and stayed with an old room-mate), he promised never to lay a finger on me again, knelt on his knees, and weeping.<br/>
The promise was broken within the week.<br/>
The thought of dropping back onto the armchair and going to sleep is inviting, but I pass it up. I feel like the calico won’t be too happy to come downstairs in a few hours and find me still here.<br/>
Best to see how he’s doing before I go, eh? I think. He’ll be up by now, surely.<br/>
The staircase is past a white glass-covered wall to the left of the front door.<br/>
It’s dark up there and impossible to see anything after the landing. There’s no light switch from what I can tell with a brief check.<br/>
So I head up into the blackness.<br/>
A short hall opens ahead of me. Two doors to my left, one to my right, and another straight ahead.<br/>
I check them all, starting with the ones on my left.<br/>
The closest opens into a storage room with cardboard boxes adorning the tight space. There’s barely room to move. Even through the darkness, I notice a wardrobe pushed against the back wall, but nothing else of interest.<br/>
The next room is, surprise surprise, dark too. It looks like a spare bedroom judging from the single sheetless bed frame and mattress.<br/>
I back out into the hall and try the northern door. It opens to a small bathroom (dark) but you don’t need light to tell a bathroom apart.<br/>
That leaves the single door on the right. I try the handle, as I have every other door, and push against it.<br/>
It doesn’t open. A small rattle sounds every time I try opening it. The rattle of a deadbolt. But who’d deadbolt a bedroom? Well, that’s what I’m guessing the door opens to. The other dark room with an unmade bed seems hardly suited to sleeping.<br/>
I knock.<br/>
“Hey, are you good mate?” I ask. No answer. Still, in case he’s pretending to sleep and can hear everything I’m saying, I let him know that I’m leaving.<br/>
Again, nothing.<br/>
“Well, bye then,” I say, and head downstairs.<br/>
My phone lets out a jingle just as I reach the door. It’s the unmistakable ring of a received text message.<br/>
I already know who it is as I pull it out to check, and I’m not wrong.<br/>
The message is from Plato.</p><p>- Don’t know where u are and I don’t care. Just be here by 9 going to Carb’s tonite. If u don’t want to hang out with us then piss off and get our shopping done. U know the list. -</p><p>Fucking great. Now I’m boxed in. However much I’d kill to have another night away from him, going back today, while he’s in an all right mood, would be a better time than any. If he was pissed off bad, I wouldn’t have gotten a text at all. So that’s a good sign at least.<br/>
Before I go, I grab a pad and pencil from the kitchen and jot down a quick note.</p><p>I’m off now. Hope you’re doing better. Need to get some shopping done tonight tho, so meet me outside Sainsbury’s at ten if you want.<br/>
Mistoffelees.</p><p>I realise I don’t even know his name! All this time I’ve gone without the barest form of identification. And just as bad, he doesn’t know mine either.<br/>
I add: </p><p>P.S. You still have to tell me your name.</p><p>Tearing the note off the cardboard holder, I set it on the living room table before I leave. Then I head outside and down onto the sidepath, without the slightest clue as to what I should do for the next five and a half hours.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Surprises</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As it turns out, I did nothing except walk around town aimlessly until half seven, when I forced myself to go home. Or to the place I sleep every other day. Hardly call it a “home”.<br/>
Plato’s out when I get back. No note or text. I doubt he expected me back until five minutes before we were supposed to head to the party.<br/>
I shower and pick out some clothes that I look good in - even though I have no intention (nor does Plato think I have) of partying tonight.<br/>
No, tonight I’m shopping.<br/>
I don’t expect the calico to show up. So, shopping alone, to be more precise.<br/>
I’m dressed and dried and lost in thought when he comes in. I hear the front door open and muffled mumbles of frustration, his announcement of entrance.<br/>
Plato stops when he comes into the room and sees me sat on the bed.<br/>
No word. He just glances at me, moves over to the wardrobe. He’s not pissed and physical, but he’s definitely pissed all right.<br/>
I’ll take plain old pissed over the alternative any day.<br/>
While he changes into new clothes, I sit in silence, perfectly still. I don’t wanna breathe too loud and give away the fact I’m still a part of this mortal world.<br/>
As it turns out I don’t have to. Plato starts flapping his gums anyway.<br/>
“Now I’m not gonna grill you for whatever you were doing last night, but just tell me you weren’t fucking someone else.”<br/>
A pain forms in my stomach when I remember what happened after I accused him of doing the same thing. Never again, I think.<br/>
“I’m not a slut,” I say simply.<br/>
I can’t tell if he’s satisfied with this answer but his lips remain pressed tight regardless.<br/>
He comes over and hands me a paper slip.<br/>
“Knowing you’ll be sulking around the party tonight, I went and wrote out a list of what we need.”<br/>
”How kind of you,” I say, my tone deadpan, my face completely blank.<br/>
A snort blows out his nose; he makes for the door. “And lose the fucking attitude, Mistoffelees,” he yells from the living room.<br/>
I make the most bare-bones meal with whatever we have in the apartment. The result: a sad little salad with some cheap dressing.<br/>
Plato says nothing about the meal. It would’ve been nice if the fork dropped down his throat, I think, but not today, as fate would have it.<br/>
Like we did last night, we walk to the party.<br/>
I’m wearing some ripped jeans and a grey shirt, with a denim jacket over it. Not the best attire for a chilly evening. Plato has on a fluffy winter coat which doesn’t stop his teeth from chattering. With each breath, a cloud of steam rolls into the air.<br/>
Neither of us say a word as we go our separate ways. Plato turns left and heads down a driveway, surrounded by trees, to Carbucketty’s place, while I continue straight.<br/>
I’m about a mile from where we were last night. All of Plato’s friends seem to live close together, I note. All of them seem to throw parties into the early hours of each and every fucking night, too.<br/>
Least I have something to do this evening, though.<br/>
I cross the mostly-deserted street and get into a taxi. It’s too cold to walk for half an hour. I was freezing my ass off all the way here, so who can blame me for wanting five minutes inside a warm car?<br/>
Five minutes fly by and we pull up outside the orange-lit Sainsbury’s sign.<br/>
“Ah, nah you’re fine,” the tabby tomcat says as I hand him a couple of coins.<br/>
“Wait,” I say, “really?”<br/>
“Hardly any trouble that was,” he tells me.<br/>
“Aw, gee thanks. Have a good one,” I say and he says, “You too,” to which I say, “Will do,” knowing perfectly well I’ll do anything but.<br/>
Though I will admit, the cabbie’s small act does put me in a pretty good mood.<br/>
He pulls out and turns onto the main road, going back the way he’d driven me. I watch until he’s out of sight, before climbing the small set of stairs to the raised Sainsbury’s parking lot.<br/>
It’s busier than I expect it to be at this time. There’s a good few cars dotted about. People go in and come out the automatic glass doors in numbers.<br/>
About fifty feet from the entrance, I scan for the calico. To no one’s surprise, there isn’t one. Much as I helped him out last night, I can’t say I ever once felt as though he wanted me around. Still, I can’t believe the irony of me, drunk as hell, fixing up (what I thought to be) a huge cut on his arm - and as it turned out, there wasn’t one - only for the same events to unfold hours later, except this time, they’re really happening. I honestly don’t know what happened outside the corner shop. All I do know is, if it wasn’t an alcohol-induced hallucination, the guy has some bloody fast healing abilities.<br/>
I slide a pound into the slot on the trolley and drag it out from the others. The sound of clatters suddenly fills the air. And, just as suddenly, it stops again.<br/>
I look down at my hand on the bar. There’s another beside it. Only this one isn’t black. It’s brown, and a whole size bigger than mine.<br/>
“Name’s Mungojerrie,” says a now-familiar cockney accent from behind me.<br/>
I let go and spin round, momentarily speechless. After a few seconds of looking into his grinning face, I say, “You’re someone I didn’t expect to see tonight.”<br/>
He cocks his head (a bronze earring glinting beneath the moonlight) and pulls the trolley out the rest of the way. “Well, you did fix me up last night. And you left a note on my table, so t’would’ve been mighty rude of me to ignore it, eh?”<br/>
He smiles at me, I smile back, and we head into the store.<br/>
“So your name’s Mistoffelees,” he says once we’re inside the well-lit Sainsbury’s. He pushes the trolley and I walk beside him.<br/>
“So your name is Mungojerrie?” I say back.<br/>
”Tis’ so.”<br/>
“Ugh, I’m stupid for letting the most basic feline interaction pass my mind last night.”<br/>
”Not to worry. I was so out of it I doubt I would’ve told you if you asked.”<br/>
“How’s your arm?”<br/>
We stop. Mungojerrie rolls up the sleeve of his denim jacket - beneath which he’s wearing a velvet red t-shirt and a pair of brown cargo pants - and shows me.<br/>
“Aw’right.”<br/>
There’s not much to see. A small, thin scar line and some thread the wrong shade of brown. I’m amazed by how well I did at sewing a wound like that back up.<br/>
“You’re skilled,” Mungojerrie says. He starts pushing the trolley again.<br/>
“And I didn’t even know it.”<br/>
“Unless I’m not remembering right, you said you were pretty much useless as a medic yesterday, didn’t you?”<br/>
“Yeah, something along those lines. And, well I thought I was.”<br/>
“And now you know yer not,” Mungojerrie says. “Oh, by the by - what’s it we’re lookin’ for?”<br/>
“Oh,” I say, pulling out my wallet, where I stored Plato’s list. “Uh, here.”<br/>
Mungojerrie points at the top item. “Beef.” I almost giggle at the way he says it so bluntly.<br/>
“Uh-huh.”<br/>
He glances around for a few seconds, looking at the large circular aisle signs. He shakes his head. “Can’t see where it’d be. Do they sell it ‘ere?”<br/>
“Of course they do. It’s Sainsbury’s. They probably have the meat section at the freezers near the back.”<br/>
“Ah. Right. We’ll go there, then.”<br/>
“Do they sell meat at Sainsbury’s?” I think. Bloody hell…<br/>
“We’ll need these,” he says, picking up a pair of cucumbers and a bag of carrots. “They’re on the list.”<br/>
“Oh yeah, so they are.” I hadn’t even read the list since Plato gave it me a few hours ago.<br/>
Glad somebody did, though.<br/>
We’ve gathered about half the stuff on the list when Mungojerrie says, “Ah, uh… do they sell slushies here?”<br/>
“Slushies?”<br/>
“Yeah, uh, those frozen drinks with the strawberry flavour.”<br/>
”No, I know what you mean. Um, I don’t know to be honest.”<br/>
I notice then that he seems a bit jumpy. He’s glancing left and right and looks a little hot with the way he tugs at his shirt collar.<br/>
We pass by the drinks section. I point at a carton. “There’s smoothie if that works?”<br/>
Mungojerrie looks to where I’m pointing. Almost immediately, he picks up the carton and says, “Two secs.” After that, he dashes off to the checkout section.<br/>
I continue our shopping expedition alone.<br/>
There’s still at least seven lines of food items to go.<br/>
“Cauliflower,” I mutter to myself and pick up a bag of four.<br/>
Ahead I move. “Cob corn.”<br/>
That’s added.<br/>
I’m looking for lettuce in the same aisle when Mungojerrie saunters my way, chugging smoothie directly from the carton. He lowers it, and looks at it with a satisfied hiss. “Good.”<br/>
“Right,” I say. “We need Quavers and large frozen chips.”<br/>
“I’ll take this,” Mungojerrie says, and moves around to take the trolley from me. He drops the carton in.<br/>
“Thank you,” I say, and jog on ahead to the end of the aisle. He speeds up with the clattering cart and reaches me in record time.<br/>
“Think frozen stuff’s over there,” he tells me, pointing in the general direction.<br/>
“Perfect, thanks. Should be more-or-less done with those.”<br/>
We head for the self-checkout once the final two items are collected (Mungojerrie is still chugging his smoothie) and I let him scan the lot.<br/>
Mungojerrie doesn’t allow me to pay in full. He shells out half the sixty-pound receipt, and I’m thirty pound better off.<br/>
“That it?” he asks when everything’s bagged and back in the trolley.<br/>
“Except for Budweiser, that’s it.”<br/>
If there is one thing I wish they had, it’s beer. Plato without a drink is a very pissed-off Plato.<br/>
I check my watch. In total, we spent a whole hour in Sainsbury’s together. Time just flew by, I think.<br/>
It’s the last thought to pass through my mind before Plato comes storming up to us, at the trolley drop-off outside Sainsbury’s.<br/>
“Mistoffelees!” he yells and the tipsy fury in his voice makes me full-body shiver.<br/>
“You know him?” Mungojerrie asks from beside me.<br/>
My voice is gone. No answer comes.<br/>
“You,” Plato says, his glare burning holes through the back of my head. “Should’ve known when you didn’t show your slutty little ass last night.”<br/>
”Plato--” I start, but I don’t have the chance to say anything else. He reaches us, and stands so close to me I could touch him.<br/>
“Who’s he?”<br/>
Plato tilts his head in Mungojerrie’s direction.<br/>
“A friend,” I answer with all the confidence I can muster.<br/>
“Ah, a friend?” Plato repeats, almost mocking. “Just a friend you’re fucking?”<br/>
”What? Plato, no--”<br/>
“Nah, nah, it all makes sense now. Never wrong is Alonzo.”<br/>
“A-Alonzo?!” I spit. “What’s he to do with this?”<br/>
“He told me, he nipped out here for some cans of booze, saw you two together. Heh, it all makes sense. Mistoffelees doesn’t come home last night. Wonder why? Because he finds this streetcat and just has his way with him!”<br/>
“Fuck off you drunk dickhead,” I tell him, my face hot, temper boiling. I steal a look at Mungojerrie. His expression is cold, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the flaming tom before us.<br/>
“What did you fucking say?”<br/>
“He’s not like that. I helped him--”<br/>
“What? Get off?”<br/>
“He isn’t like that!” My scream is so loud I’m only grateful there isn’t anybody else in earshot. Actually, I’d rather them hear me yelling my head off than hear the conversation at hand.<br/>
Plato laughs. He laughs in a way which tells me he’s so fucking pissed he’s at a loss for words. The worst kind of laugh there is.<br/>
“Just you wait till we get home,” he growls and I step back into the denim of Mungojerrie’s jacket.<br/>
“I. Am not. Going. Home.”<br/>
“Where are you going then, you little twat? Back off to bed with him?”<br/>
Plato points at Mungojerrie, who’s expression hasn’t changed in the slightest. He’s like a spectator, I think. He looks like he’s just watching a public argument without registering the fact that he’s the source of it.<br/>
“Well maybe I am. You already have everything pretty straight in your head it seems, so why don’t you fucking tell me?”<br/>
No one says anything for several seconds. The three of us just stand in the darkness, in the cool of night.<br/>
Close as he can get without our noses touching, Plato says right into my face, his voice just above a whisper: “Be home before two. We will sort this out the fucking second I’m home.”<br/>
A glaring battle commences between us, and he walks away before another word can be spoken.<br/>
I know perfectly well, if Mungojerrie hadn’t been here, Plato would’ve beat me into the cold pavement.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Fangs and Torn Flesh</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Two mins," he said.</p><p>"Nothing will happen to you in two minutes," he said.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“But what if I was wrong?” Alonzo asks from the passenger seat as Plato turns the car onto the side of the road.<br/>
It’s half-past two in the morning, Plato notes, catching a glimpse of the electronic dashboard clock. Mistoffelees better be home by now, he thinks.<br/>
“Well, you weren’t. I saw ‘em together. Looked like they were on a real cutesy date.”<br/>
“And you yelled at Mistoffelees?” Alonzo asks.<br/>
“Course I did. Little asshole never listens to anything if I don’t.”<br/>
”Was the other guy there?”<br/>
”The calico? Yeah.”<br/>
”Well what did he say?”<br/>
“To what?” Plato asks. He switches off the engine.<br/>
“To you. Having a go at Misto.”<br/>
Plato shakes his head. “Nothing. Just watched me the whole time, dumb bastard. Even when I accused them of fucking, the guy said nothing. If that doesn’t tell me the whole story, then bloody hell.”<br/>
The pair get out of the car, and it pips to announce that it has locked. No other soul can be seen on the tarmac expanse.<br/>
“Uh, you didn’t mention my involvement in all this, did you?” Alonzo asks.<br/>
Without hesitation, Plato says, “No.” For a moment, he wonders why Alonzo would be concerned about something like that. Even so, he decides not to ask. The quicker he’s home and out the cold, the better.<br/>
It was stupid of him to forget to put cigarettes on the list. Because of course, Mistoffelees wouldn’t notice the absence of one of his boyfriend’s biggest addictions. Of course, he wouldn’t pick them up without being told to.<br/>
The white corner shop sign glows ahead.<br/>
“Could you wait out here, Alonzo?” Plato says. “Watch the car?”<br/>
“Why? I’m freezing, Plato. You’re only gonna be a minute.”<br/>
“Yeah, well this ain’t the best place. Look how quiet it is. No idea what sort of druggies might live around here. Just wait, and I’ll be back in two.”<br/>
“Plato, hold on. You heard what happened to Bill and Cass last night, didn’t you?”<br/>
“No. What?”<br/>
“He said some mad-head tried biting his face, so he cut his arm with a knife. And I don’t have a knife.”<br/>
“Two mins, Alonzo. Nothing will happen to you in two minutes. I’ll be right back.”<br/>
Inside the small corner shop, Plato heads straight to the counter. Based on experience, it’s almost always the place cigarette packets are kept.<br/>
And experience proves true: the rack beside the register is stacked high with white cardboard packets, displaying warnings of infection and heart problems.<br/>
Plato already has a cig in his mouth, his lighter nearing the nub, as he leaves the shop.<br/>
But the flame never reaches the brown paper. Both the cigarette and the lighter drop to his feet once the tom registers the scene unfolding ahead of him.<br/>
There’s a wet gurgling sound coming from Alonzo’s mouth. He’s just a silhouette from where Plato is standing.<br/>
And not the only one.<br/>
Another clear silhouette - a few inches taller - has him pushed against the wall, its head beside Alonzo’s neck.<br/>
Savage grunts, similar to those of a wild animal, come from the unknown party.<br/>
He’s being eaten… The horror of this realisation is lost on Plato.<br/>
“Al-lonzo?”<br/>
At this, the other silhouette slowly pulls back. Beneath the moonlight, Plato can see its features now it isn’t cloaked in shadow.<br/>
A pair of feral yellow eyes watch him, seeming to glow. It drops Alonzo, who goes down onto the pavement with a scraping thud, then it wipes at its mouth with almost macabre satisfaction. Plato registers a bronze glint from the feline’s left ear before it dips behind a corner and out of sight.<br/>
The speed of the cat is great. Plato doesn’t even set after him. He’d have no chance of getting another glimpse.<br/>
“Alonzo?” he asks, drawing closer. A wet sparkle shines across the neck of his grey shirt.<br/>
“Hurts…” the tom says, his voice nothing more than a pained whisper.<br/>
“Holy shit. Holy sh--”<br/>
Then he notices his friend’s neck. It’s clearly the result of a mauling.<br/>
In that moment, Plato confirms three things:<br/>
The perpetrator is a calico.<br/>
The perpetrator wears a bronze earring.<br/>
And the perpetrator is a vampire.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A Moment of Respite</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Fucker,” Mungojerrie mutters under his breath, once Plato is far from hearing range. It’s the first time he’s spoken since the start of Plato’s dramatic tantrum.<br/>
“Oh my god,” I say slumping to the floor. My back gets scraped on the way down, but I’m beyond caring at this point.<br/>
“Who is he?”<br/>
“He was my boyfriend,” I admit, feeling dazed. My hands go up to my face. “I can’t go home. He’ll kill me. I know it.” Within seconds, my palms are wet through. I’m crying.<br/>
Mungojerrie crouches down beside me. “Then don’t.”<br/>
“Who am I kidding? Course I’ll have to. All my stuff’s there.”<br/>
“Anything important?”<br/>
“No, not really.”<br/>
“Then forget it,” Mungojerrie says as if it’s that easy.<br/>
Through the tears, I chuckle. “Nah, he’d still get me back. I’ll go to a hotel. I’ve done it before to get away.”<br/>
”This’s happened before?” There’s a wave of deep, clear anger in Mungojerrie’s voice, despite the control he has over it.<br/>
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”<br/>
”Well I am worrying ‘bout it.”<br/>
It’s hard for me to stand from the concrete. A few inches off the ground, Jerrie’s hands wrap beneath my arms and he pulls me up the rest of the way. To him I seem almost weightless.<br/>
“Thanks,” I say, and he pulls out the smoothie carton from a brown bag. He unscrews the lid, raises it to his mouth, and a pair of tiny drops fall onto his tongue. The carton’s down by his waist seconds later; he’s frowning.<br/>
Then that hot, jumpy look comes back and he’s pulling at his collar again.<br/>
“You okay?” I ask.<br/>
“Yeah,” Mungojerrie says, panting almost. “Yeah, just-- uh, I’d invite you back to my place but I have my, uh, my hands full at the min.” He tries the carton again, raising it to his mouth. Nothing comes out.<br/>
“It’s empty,” I tell him in case he hasn’t noticed.<br/>
”Yeah. Well, nice seeing ya again. You know where I am if-- if you need me, so good luck, and, uh, yeah. See you around Misto.”<br/>
“Bye,” I say, and watch as he jogs away from me. Within seconds, he reaches and descends the parking lot staircase, and disappears from view.</p><p>It isn’t until I’m sitting in the taxi cab that I notice something about our last interaction: Mungojerrie didn’t once look me in the face after helping me up from off the ground. It’s as though that one simple act flipped a switch inside him. And he didn’t just act like he wasn’t sure where to look.<br/>
He deliberately looked everywhere except at me.<br/>
I don’t pay much mind to the thought, however. I’m simply making an observation.<br/>
As my mind clouds with fatigue, I catch the time displayed on the electronic dashboard clock.<br/>
It’s almost eleven pm.<br/>
I hardly notice when I fall into a dreamless sleep for the twenty minutes it takes to reach the hotel.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Late Night Lonely Blues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In my bedroom on the third floor of the hotel, I sit on the mattress edge and feel alone for the first time in a long while.<br/>
This blue feeling in the pit of my stomach has come out of nowhere. I know why it’s there, though.<br/>
It’s there because Plato isn’t by my side. Because I’ve gone and done something by myself for the first time in months. Or, more accurately, because I’ve deliberately gone against one of his orders. And that’s something he has no control over.<br/>
And only now, when I am literally alone, do I realise how long this feeling has been boiling up within me for.<br/>
I’m alone when I’m with Plato because we aren’t living together. In a literal sense, we are. We share an apartment, a bed, a table - but our lives operate on different levels. I live for him, I stay by his side because he needs me to feel alive. He doesn’t want me out of love. He owns me like an old person owns a pet. The pet isn’t to be loved. Its existence is just a reason for the old person to get out of bed, to go down to the shop for pet food, to feel alive.<br/>
But the pet never has free reign over what it wants out of life. And so, when the old person dies or abandons it, the pet doesn’t know how to function. It’s been brought up and taught boundaries, taught “you can’t live without me.”<br/>
“I need someone…” I say into the quiet of the room. Tears are running down my face, wetting my fur. Useless fucking tears. The tears aren’t helping me. I want them to stop, but they don’t. I can wish all I want, but I can’t do anything about them.<br/>
“It’s not worth it. If I wasn’t such a fucking coward I could be right out of this life.”<br/>
So why do I keep going? There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for me. I hope there is, I’m sure there will be at some point.<br/>
But is there?<br/>
As long as I’m alive in his mind, I don’t think there will be. As long as he’s still here, using me as a life-source, then there won’t be.<br/>
For the first time ever, I just wish with all my heart that he’d die. I’ve wished it before, more out of spite than anything. But now I see, as long as he’s alive, I won’t be able to live.<br/>
Would life in prison really be much worse than life with him? I honestly can’t say.<br/>
In the moments where I can’t find anything to fill my mind, I think back to Mungojerrie. Today, with him, I was actually happy. Even a task as dull as shopping was improved by his being there. And what made it special was the fact that he didn’t even have to come along. I didn’t force him to do anything. I simply gave him an invitation and he happily took it.<br/>
I laugh aloud when I try to imagine Plato doing the same thing: shopping with me because he cares. We haven’t shopped together by just wanting to in at least a year. He only ever cares when my potentially leaving becomes a real threat. After all, it would be like taking away his source of oxygen.<br/>
It’s been a long, long day. Ironic, considering I woke up at three and have been awake for less time than an average day’s length. Nonetheless, however, I feel exhausted.<br/>
I’m only stopped from sleeping by a succession of texts that send my phone vibrating nearly off the bedside table. A flicker of excitement lights within me when I think they might be from Jerrie - that flicker is snuffed out when I recall I never gave him my number, though.<br/>
No, these texts are from Plato. My phone never buzzes once if not for him.<br/>
Groggily, I turn over and switch on the screen, head to the Messages app. There are three messages in total.</p><p>- Misto, need u back here now -</p><p>- Nothing about what happened tonight, but I need to tell u something very important. Ur in danger -</p><p>- Come back home asap -</p><p>This is something big. His style of texting is completely different from when he’s attempting to be soppy so I’ll forgive him for whatever he’s done to upset me. An empty feeling opens in the pit of my stomach. I get a hunch that tells me I’m walking right into the lion’s den. If he needs me so badly, he’ll just call.<br/>
But no. This is different.<br/>
I stash my room key into my jeans pocket and pull open the door. I’m only praying that this isn’t a trick.<br/>
Otherwise, I might not ever be leaving that apartment again.<br/>
Mungojerrie… wish you were here with me.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Final Straw</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s past three in the morning when the taxi pulls up outside the apartment block. The horrid flat, grey cube stretches up for three stories and seems to only exist to depress. I never would’ve said yes to living in a place like this a few years ago.<br/>
We live on the second floor. I take the lift up - a ride which lasts for no more than five seconds - and I’m there. Our apartment is directly in front of the lift, so a single step is all it takes to land me before it.<br/>
I pull the key out of my pocket and slot it into the door. I could’ve just as easily knocked, but since when does Plato ever answer my knocks?<br/>
The door opens slowly. A small push from me is all it needs to go wide enough to enter.<br/>
“Yeah?” I call out. I don’t feel safe not knowing where he is. I don’t like him not knowing where I am.<br/>
“Here,” comes an answering call from the kitchen. My heart pounds faster as I approach the door. Why does he have to be in the kitchen? There’s an arsenal of weapons in there - knives, pottery, pans, utensils of all sizes; I’d much rather he be in the living room.<br/>
But alas, he is not. I’ll be pissed if I get killed inside the bloody kitchen. When I die, I want my corpse to fall in a dignified place.<br/>
I’m through the doorway. Plato is sat with his back to me at the table. There doesn’t look to be anything in front of him. Is he just staring straight ahead? I shiver at the thought. Something about all this just unnerves me. Everything is so unnatural tonight.<br/>
“What do you want?” I ask. I don’t know how I hoped for the words to come out, but the way I say them makes my inquiry sound icy cold. As if I’m trying my best to sound hostile.<br/>
Plato pushes his chair back and rises from the seat. He’s a good foot taller than me, only now, he seems too tall and me too small. My instincts tell me to run, but my feet don’t allow it.<br/>
I’m stuck here.<br/>
Finally, he turns and stares something fierce right through me. He isn’t smiling. Nor is he frowning. I can’t describe the expression he wears in a word other than devoid. No emotion lies behind his eyes. Just an empty sea of nothingness.<br/>
“What.” I don’t ask the word, I say it. My voice wavers because I can tell there’s something really off happening here.<br/>
“Let me ask you something, Misto. Do you want me dead?”<br/>
Funny you should ask, because just a few minutes ago… “What?”<br/>
He moves forward, and in a step, he’s right in front of me.<br/>
“Do you know what he is?”<br/>
I’m at a loss for words. What the fuck is he talking about?<br/>
”What?” I ask, sounding like a broken doll’s voice box.<br/>
Plato’s answer is a hard palm across my face that sends me straight to the floor. I let out a noise, halfway between a cry and a gasp.<br/>
“HIM! THE FUCKING VAMPIRE YOU DIPSHIT!”<br/>
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I yell, pressing my hand against my cheek. “You’re drunk!”<br/>
“Do I look drunk? I’m fucking not! He ripped out Alonzo’s throat!”<br/>
My mind spins with what he’s saying. Nothing makes sense.<br/>
“Alonzo?”<br/>
“Yes, Alonzo! He’s in the hospital with forty stitches in the side of his neck because of him!”<br/>
“Who?! I don’t know who you’re talking about!”<br/>
I try to stand, but his bare foot connects with my chin. It’s one of the most painful hits I’ve ever taken. My entire jaw sears with a red hot sensation and I’m back to where I was.<br/>
“That fucking calico! The tom you were with! Get with the fucking program they’re a rarity you thick little shit!”<br/>
“J-Jerrie?” I cough out the words. My breath is completely gone.<br/>
“You knew what he was, didn’t you? I thought it weird you magically get a new friend overnight. Knowing you. Knowing how you are with friends.”<br/>
“I… I don’t u-understand, Pla-Plato…”<br/>
“Ah, funny, because I do. You’re the reason Alonzo’s almost dead! You must’ve paid that vampire with your little body to have him come after me. Or did you have some class and pay with cash instead?”<br/>
Vampire? I think, but thinking is too hard. My mind just swirls and swirls and swirls.<br/>
I have no clue what the fuck he’s talking about.<br/>
“Well, your vampire got the wrong guy! Oh-ho, yes he did. See, it wasn’t me out by the car. It was Alonzo. Better ask for your money back because he MAULED THE WRONG GUY!”<br/>
Another kick to my side almost knocks me out there and then, but I maintain consciousness.<br/>
“It was absolute-fucking-madness. Coming out, looking down, and seeing my best friend getting his throat ripped into by a vampire. The vampire you’ve been hanging around with, no less. Got it all put together, there and then. Was like summet out of a movie, the way he just vanished around that corner. And his eyes… god. You low little scumbag, Mistoffelees.”<br/>
“How do you… how-- you know it’s him?” Talking is hard. Thinking is harder. What’s going on?!<br/>
Plato crouches to my level, grabs me tight by the neck of my shirt, and hoists me up to the kitchen sink almost weightlessly. “Because he had the same bloody earring. He looked the same, Mistoffelees. Think I’d forget a guy I saw just hours ago? I’m gonna find where the fucker lives, then I’m gonna go round with a stake and hammer and you better believe I’ll--”<br/>
He cuts himself off with a scream when I thrust an icepick right into the side of his leg. It had been sitting in the sink. My chance was there - I just had to take it.<br/>
”WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOONE?!” he shrieks from behind me as I make it to the door and throw it open. It slams on him screaming “MISTOFFELEES!” and I waste no time in waiting to see what happens next: I sprint right down the staircase, fast as my aching legs can carry me, and out the front door I go. The taxi’s just a few meters from where it had been when I was dropped off.<br/>
That’s my light at the end of the tunnel.<br/>
I run to it with open arms.<br/>
The cabbie looks startled when I jump inside, spinning round to see what the commotion is.<br/>
“Alexis Street,” I say, hard as it is. “Go, please. Go.”<br/>
The driver knows better than to ask questions and sets off immediately. With the sound of screaming tires behind us, I kiss goodbye to the fucker living on the second floor of that shitty apartment block, and laugh to myself with the knowledge that I’m free from his grasp forever.<br/>
Still, there’s something that gnaws at the back of my mind.<br/>
What in the hell did Plato mean by vampire?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Breakdown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My legs barely comply when I force them to take me up the steps to Mungojerrie’s house. Twice I drop to the ground, scraping myself on the concrete.<br/>
When I reach the door, I knock with a weak fist.<br/>
“Jerrie,” I croak. “Please…” The tears come again, plentiful in supply.<br/>
I weep, openly, on Mungojerrie’s front steps.<br/>
“Please? Mungojerrie…”<br/>
“Mistoffelees?” inquires a voice from behind me.<br/>
Mungojerrie stands at the bottom of the stairs. He looks up at me, curious. I want to stand, I try to, but it’s hopeless. I’m far too weak.<br/>
Silently, he ascends the steps and kneels by my side. I nuzzle my face to his chest and let the tears and sobs come. Mungojerrie is saying something to me, but he sounds far away. His voice washes in, then out again, like the coming tide.<br/>
It’s enough to send me into a deep sleep.<br/>
At least, it feels like sleep. I might have passed out (as that is an equally plausible possibility), but either way, I wake up on the couch in Jerrie’s living room.<br/>
I’m hit by an immediate sense of confusion.<br/>
“Mungojerrie?” I call out. I try sitting up, but my body aches too much for that. Pain throbs from my jaw and face and side and everywhere else imaginable.<br/>
I feel like hell.<br/>
“Yeah?” he calls from the kitchen. “You aw’right?”<br/>
“No,” I say. “I’m hurting all over, Jerrie. I feel shittier than I ever have before.”<br/>
He comes through then, rubbing his hands with a towel. He leans against the doorframe in a casual pose, left shoulder holding his weight. “You passed out on my front step.”<br/>
“Oh, you don’t say.”<br/>
“It bad?”<br/>
I don’t know what he’s referring to - I guess the level of pain I’m experiencing? Regardless, I nod.<br/>
He strides over to me, throwing the towel over his shoulder. He kneels down and looks straight into my eyes. “He did this to you, didn’t he?”<br/>
There’s no point in denying it. I nod again.<br/>
“Why?”<br/>
“I don’t know! I don’t know why!”<br/>
“No, why’d you go back? You even said it yourself earlier, he’d kill you.”<br/>
Tears form in my eyes again. I have to compose myself before I speak. Still, my voice warbles. “He had something to tell me.”<br/>
“Dun he have a phone?”<br/>
”Yeah, that’s how I knew it was something big. He texted me. Sounded panicked.”<br/>
”Then why didn’t you call him if it was so important?”<br/>
”I don’t know!” I shout, not meaning to raise my voice. My head rings like someone’s just tolled a bell propped upon my brain.<br/>
Mungojerrie looks momentarily stunned.<br/>
“I don’t know why,” I tell him, voice steady and controlled. “But I went back anyway. I just knew it had to be something.”<br/>
“And what was it? This ‘big important thing’?”<br/>
In my head, I try lining up what I’m gonna say into a sentence that wouldn’t sound completely strange. It doesn’t work. No matter which way I spin it, there’s no sensible way to spit it out.<br/>
“Okay. This is gonna sound ridiculous but work with me. All right?”<br/>
Jerrie nods slowly.<br/>
“He said… wait hold on. Right. Let me start from the end, then. Alonzo’s in the hospital.”<br/>
”Who’s that?”<br/>
“Right,” I say. “Yeah, no, you wouldn’t know. Well, he’s the guy who supposedly saw us… together. He’s the one who told Plato about us.”<br/>
”I don’t know ‘im.”<br/>
”No, didn’t think you would. But that doesn’t matter. Point is, he’s… badly hurt.”<br/>
Mungojerrie doesn’t even blink. He just watches me, concentrating on my every word.<br/>
“He got mauled. That’s what Plato said. He was waiting outside and someone came along and ripped out his throat. And I know this sounds… bizarre. But he thinks it was a vampire.”<br/>
A smirk forms on the edge of his lips. “A vampire?”<br/>
”That’s what he said. Then he mentioned something about his eyes, and how he ‘vanished’ around the corner but…”<br/>
”But what?”<br/>
“Don’t laugh,” I say, almost giggling myself. “In fact, don’t even say anything for a single minute while I get this out. Basically, Plato’s convinced it was you. He said he recognised you and is sure I knew you were a vampire and paid you to go after him but you got the wrong guy instead. He also said whoever mauled Alonzo had the same earring as you.”<br/>
I can’t read Jerrie’s expression. He looks to be frowning, and he looks to be on the verge of laughter at the same time.<br/>
“I know, sounds fucking backward, doesn’t it. But long story short, that’s how I got beat up. Heh. It’s been a long day, Jerrie. I don’t even know anymore… I thought he was drunk, but he didn’t sound it… didn’t even look it. I just don’t know.”<br/>
Mungojerrie doesn’t say anything. I know I told him not to talk until I got it all out, but now I have and now I want to hear him laugh it off.<br/>
Why is he not laughing?<br/>
Why does he look so anxious?<br/>
“Jerrie?”<br/>
”… Yeah?”<br/>
”This is where you’re supposed to laugh.”<br/>
He looks at me with the confused expression of somebody who’s just been asked a question in a foreign language.<br/>
“Yeah…”<br/>
A sudden idea crosses my mind and I act on it instantly.<br/>
I roll up his shirt sleeve with the speed of a fleeing spider, so fast he barely has time to register what I’ve done.<br/>
He opens his mouth to say something. Nothing comes out, though.<br/>
With a hard tug, I yank him toward me by his arm. I’m looking for the wound, the wound sewn up with an off-brown thread that could never possibly heal within a day or even a week.<br/>
He’s icy cold. I’m surprised he doesn’t fight back against my intrusion of his privacy.<br/>
“Where is it?”<br/>
He doesn’t answer. He just looks away with a face of controlled frustration.<br/>
“It was right here, Mungojerrie. The deep wound. I sewed it up yesterday and you showed it me in the store. Where is it now? There’s no fucking way it’s healed so fast. And you’re freezing.”<br/>
He just looks at me despondently.<br/>
“I wasn’t just hallucinating it, was I? When I fixed you up the first time? You really had torn your wrist open, hadn’t you? And it healed. In the time I was in the store, it healed back up, didn’t it? And all this time I thought I’d just been out of my head.”<br/>
Nothing.<br/>
“Say something.”<br/>
His lips move. Still, nothing.<br/>
Curtains closed in every room.<br/>
Sleeps through the day.<br/>
Icy skin.<br/>
Remarkable regenerative abilities.<br/>
And if what Plato says is to be believed…<br/>
“You’re dead, aren’t you? You are a vampire… aren’t you?”<br/>
He nods so slow his head might not be moving at all. “I may have hurt some people, Misto.”<br/>
“You’re not denying it. Do it. Deny what I said.”<br/>
”I can’t.”<br/>
Even though I already know the reason, I ask, “Why not?”<br/>
But he just fixes me with a look that says, “You already know.”<br/>
After a moment of silence, I try laughing. It hurts like hell, but I force it through my throat and say, “Laugh, Jerrie. This is when you’re supposed to laugh. He was drunk. Please laugh. Vampires aren’t real so don’t think you can fuck with me. I’m not a kid. You can’t trick me like that, Mungo.”<br/>
“But if I laugh, then I’m just skipping around the truth. Please understand, Mistoffelees. Please don’t… please don’t hate me.”<br/>
Droplets of water dampen the fur on the back of my hand. Tears. The cold tears of a monster who only exists in horror books and movies.<br/>
“It’s so hard, Mistoffelees. I get so hungry. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t leave me like everyone else. I’m so alone.”<br/>
It’s strange seeing him sob like this, into my arm. His icy tears prickle my skin and yet it’s impossible to accept. I’m still waiting for him to say, “Got you! Did I get you good, Misto?”<br/>
But he just weeps.<br/>
A vampire crying against my fur. I never would’ve thought.<br/>
“So Plato was right… you did attack Alonzo.”<br/>
”I wanted to scare him! I didn’t want that fucker hurting you again. I wanted to get him, I really did… but the other one was right there. And I was starving… I go for days without any food. I can’t eat normal stuff. Cold drinks keep the hunger down a bit, but I’m not strong enough! I have to drink my own fuckin’ blood to survive!”<br/>
He clenches his teeth together, stopping his scream from coming right out of him. It’s hard not to gasp when his fang catches my skin. I can’t see the small wound - my line of sight is set straight ahead, into nothingness - but I can feel the blood well up. I can feel the dampness of his sandpaper tongue when it flicks at the drops. I want to say, “Please don’t hurt me,” but I can’t. I can only brace myself for the bite.<br/>
However, it never comes. Mungojerrie restrains the urge, throwing himself to the floor and screaming into the carpet. I hear every ounce of frustration pour out into that scream. I don’t know what to do. Half of me wants to hug him, wants to let him know that I’m here.<br/>
Half of me is scared of him. Beneath the agony and burning frustration, there’s a primal urge he can’t control. “SEE, I HURT YOU! IT’S ALL I EVER DO. I HURT! I HURT INSIDE AND I KILL EVERYONE OUTSIDE! I WANT YOU BY ME, MISTO, BUT I CAN’T LET YOU GET HURT. THEN I WON’T BE ANY BETTER THAN HIM! I AM A FUCKING ANIMAL!”<br/>
”Mungo…”<br/>
I want to stay with him. I really do. But staying is suicide. All angles point to this realisation, and the temptation from my being here is doing nothing to help. The sooner I’m away from him, the better off he’ll be.<br/>
“I’ll be back,” I whisper, just loud enough for him to hear. Then I walk to the door, pull it open, and step into the night.<br/>
I promise, Mungo. I won’t leave you. I’ll come back soon.<br/>
But I’m not sure that promise is one I can keep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. End of the Nightmare</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The hotel is the one place left for me where my life isn’t in danger. Everywhere else is perilous to my safety. At home, Plato will be awaiting my return so that he can kill me in any way possible. Stabbing him with an ice pick was both the smartest, and the dumbest decision of my career.<br/>
At Jerrie’s house waits a vampire who’s lost all control. The danger there is self-explanatory.<br/>
So, the hotel it is.<br/>
For about the tenth time tonight, I get into a taxi. Exhaustion forces my eyelids closed, but I can’t sleep. To say there’s too much on my mind would be an understatement. Much more than an understatement, actually. Whatever word that exists which means gargantuan understatement times one thousand - that’s how clogged up my thoughts are.<br/>
I’m not cut out for this.<br/>
The one word - cut - makes me think of my hand when Jerrie caught it with his fang. My eyes lower to it draped lazily across my lap. The small wound is red and sore, the flesh around it blotched and itchy. Now he’s technically bitten me, does that mean I’ll turn into a vampire, too? Is that all it takes? A tiny scratch like that? If saliva needs to mix with the blood, he did lick at the cut afterward as well…<br/>
No, probably not, huh? I doubt it’s that easy. But, to be honest, it actually sounds… fun? Or fun in comparison to how everything’s going for me right now.<br/>
What am I thinking?<br/>
Nothing seems real tonight. All I should be focused on now is getting some rest.<br/>
The cab pulls into the small parking lot outside the plain, brick-built complex. There’s a fountain by the sliding glass doors and a line of hedges surrounding the building, but as far as scenery goes, that’s about it. I tiredly thank the driver, pay him, and head inside. The light within the reception is overwhelming; my head aches at the florescent attack. I stumble backward, regain my footing, and try and keep myself steady while I move toward the lift. Luckily, my legs don’t fail me.<br/>
I press for floor three. Accompanied by a barely-audible whir, the car appears in seconds and the doors part open. Then they close after me, and I’m sent up.<br/>
There’s a muffled ding. The doors open again. I step into the red-carpeted hall and there they go, closing once more behind me.<br/>
My mind is filled with thoughts of comfort and sleep and pillows and warmth. It’s all jumbled in my head and I can hardly remember what was troubling me a few minutes ago.<br/>
I reach my door, press down on the handle.<br/>
It opens. Of course it does. Why shouldn’t it?<br/>
Why does this feel really wrong?<br/>
It’s not until I step inside and hear the latch close behind me that I realise - I didn’t use my key. I remember locking the door before I went over to Plato’s, stashing the key inside my pocket and--<br/>
-- and I remember the distinct sound of it falling to the tiles on the kitchen floor. Just as I, too, fell after his first strike.<br/>
There’s just enough time for me to remember all of these details when I feel the pointed end of some utensil plunge deep into my side.<br/>
The air from my lungs is lost. I scream, but all that comes out is an agonised whimper.<br/>
Plato stands over me and stares down. A crimson bandage is wrapped around his leg. The ice pick I used on him - the one he’s holding now, the one that just took all my breath away - drops to the carpeted floor with a light thud.<br/>
He’d rather use a more old-fashioned approach for this. One he’s used on me countless times before.<br/>
He’s going to beat me to death, I think. I see his hands ball into tight fists and I have no doubt in my mind any longer - I’m already dead.<br/>
“No,” I say, not any louder than a whisper.<br/>
The first strike makes my ears ring. My entire face burns so much that I don’t even know where I was hit. Then a kick from his good leg connects with my shoulder, and now I scream. Now the dam gives way, and I shriek loud so anyone can hear.<br/>
As it turns out, my call is answered immediately.<br/>
The single bedroom window shatters into a thousand shards. A figure rushes in - a blur of brown and orange and black - and Plato’s eyes widen at the sight of the intruder. I look to my left at Mungojerrie, shoulders rising and falling, his eyes golden yellow fury. In a single bound, he has Plato pinned against the wall, hands tight around his wrists so there’s no room for him to move. Plato lets out a yelp. I’ve never heard him make any sort of noise so pitiful before.<br/>
If the circumstances were different, I might’ve even felt sorry for him.<br/>
But I feel nothing except burning contempt for the fucker as I mentally scream, Kill him, Mungo. Just end this nightmare once and for all.<br/>
And, as though we’re telepathically connected on the same channel, he seems to hear me loud and clear.<br/>
“You know what I’m gonna do to you? I’m gonna rip out yer fuckin’ throat!”<br/>
The calico’s head lowers to Plato’s jugular, then pulls back harshly as blood sprays across the off-white coloured wall. Mungojerrie starts gulping down the liquid at once, not letting any besides the initial burst escape his lips. The noise that fills the room sounds like water being sucked from a torn straw.<br/>
It’s the most satisfying noise I’ve ever heard.<br/>
After a minute, it’s all over. Jerrie releases his vice-like grip on Plato’s wrists, and the corpse drops to the floor. Blood continues to bubble out of his ruined neck, but Jerrie doesn’t seem to care. What he does care about, though, is delivering a kick to Plato’s carcass.<br/>
A whole minute passes before he turns to me. I’m still on my back, in the same position I’ve been in since Plato’s first attack. He looks down at me.<br/>
Mungojerrie’s eyes have returned to normal. They aren’t feral and gold anymore. Just warm, and like they were the night I first met him.<br/>
But the warmth is betrayed by his extended fangs and blood-soaked fur surrounding his mouth. Drops of it fall to his shirt, splattering, like spilt sauce.<br/>
I do my best to smile up at him. I’m sure the effect is hardly charming because it hurts like the deepest pits of hell. “Thanks,” I croak. “It’s over, now.”<br/>
And his softly-smiling face is the last image to register in my mind before darkness clouds over, and my body finally permits me to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. A Request Accepted</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Beneath my head is the warm surface of Mungojerrie’s lap. I’m facing upwards when I wake, so the first thing I see upon opening my eyes is his face. Blood isn’t dripping from his mouth anymore, and his shirt is gone. His pants must have come out of it relatively unscathed, however, since they haven’t changed. I circle my finger over the brown fabric.<br/>
“Am I a vampire?” is the first thing to come out of my mouth. I have no control over the words, and probably sound delirious.<br/>
Mungojerrie just chuckles. “No.”<br/>
“Oh,” I say, and raise my hand to his face. “You bit me.”<br/>
He takes it in his and examines the wound. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Probably will hurt for a bit, but nothing’ll come of it. Sorry.”<br/>
“It’s fine. I can heal… are you sure this won’t turn me into a vampire?”<br/>
”No, it won’t. It doesn’t just happen like that.”<br/>
“Mm. How did it happen to you?”<br/>
A big toothy grin stretches across his face; even with his fangs retracted, they look intimidating. He shakes his head. “Ah, it’s been a while. I don’t remember.”<br/>
”Yeah you do. It’s something you wouldn’t forget. Like a first kiss.”<br/>
”Okay, then. I don’t want to go over it now.”<br/>
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Can you at least tell me who it was? That… did it?”<br/>
“Uhm, a friend.”<br/>
”Oh yeah?”<br/>
”Yeah.”<br/>
”How long ago?”<br/>
“Thought I said I didn’t want to get into this now.”<br/>
“Just tell me and I won’t ask anything else.”<br/>
“Uh, nah. I’ll leave it up to your imagination to guess how old I am.”<br/>
In this comfortable spot, lying across the couch in Mungojerrie’s living room, my head propped up on his lap, I work to think of more questions I can ask.<br/>
“Can you see your reflection in a mirror?”<br/>
At this, he chuckles again. “I can.”<br/>
“Hmph. That’s not how it is in the movies.”<br/>
”Well, movies aren’t real, are they?”<br/>
“Do you hate garlic?”<br/>
”I don’t hate it. But I can’t eat anything so I don’t think much of it.”<br/>
“Do crosses scare you?”<br/>
“One of my most worn necklaces is chained to a cross.”<br/>
”Ah. Holy water?”<br/>
”I’m not scared of anything.”<br/>
“No, but can it hurt you?”<br/>
”Nah.”<br/>
“Then I suppose I’ve been living a lie.”<br/>
“In case you’re gonna ask it next - and I know you will - yeah, stakes can kill us. But a pole would do just as good a job. And no, we don’t have to be invited into a home. No clue where that even came from, to be honest.”<br/>
“But sunlight…”<br/>
”That’s one thing the movies don’t lie about.”<br/>
”Huh, that’s interesting. So everything else’s made up, then?”<br/>
”Uh-huh.”<br/>
We sit in silence for a few minutes. I scratch at the tiny bite on my hand; try to think of what to ask next. What other lies have I been told all my life that Mungojerrie can either debunk or confirm? I feel as though I’ve stepped into a forbidden library, and am learning of treasured information privy to only certain mortals.<br/>
But there’s something else. A question - no, rather - a request I have to make, but can’t. The words to form it are impossible to find. Still, the very question bubbles to the top of my mind, in non-worded form. Could you…<br/>
I lose focus when Mungojerrie casually starts twirling the hair on my head between his fingers. He’s not looking at me anymore. Now he looks, distantly, into the unlit fireplace. I wonder if he’s waiting for me to ask. If he’s considering whether he should ask me first. Then I wonder what even goes on inside his mind. What are his thoughts like? How are his dreams? Does he even dream? Can he even think?<br/>
Ah, fuck it. Now I’m just wasting time. This is probably my only chance.<br/>
I go ahead and ask.<br/>
“Jerrie? How does… well, how does somebody become a vampire?”<br/>
“Hmm?”<br/>
“Well, let’s say, theoretically speaking, I asked you to make me one. How would you do it?”<br/>
He hesitates for a moment. “Uh… it’s complicated.”<br/>
I can tell from his pause, from the flicker behind his eyes, it’s not. “I have all night.”<br/>
“I don’t.”<br/>
“What time is it?”<br/>
“Almost dawn.”<br/>
“Then you better tell me quickly.”<br/>
He studies me for a second. “Why? You gonna go find another vampire who’ll actually do it?”<br/>
I say nothing.<br/>
“Well, it’s not exactly complicated… the turning part, I mean. Just the parts that come after are.”<br/>
“Oh yeah? And what are they?”<br/>
“Mistoffelees--”<br/>
“Go on and tell me. I’m not moving from here until you tell me.”<br/>
He looks defeated at my challenge, letting out a heavy sigh. “Okay. So if this not-real theoretical person asked to be turned, and they accepted all of the shit that comes with being a vamp, I’d bite them - them being not real and completely theoretical, of course - nearly killing them in the process, then they’d take some of my blood. Wait a day. And that’s it.”<br/>
“That’s it?”<br/>
“That’s it.”<br/>
”Sounds painful.”<br/>
”Yup. It is. Can I go to bed now?”<br/>
I don’t answer. I don’t move. Then I say, throwing all my eggs into the one basket: “But I’ve experienced pain before.”<br/>
“No,” Jerrie says, and looks me right in the eyes.<br/>
I decide I’ll try a different approach. “You’re lonely, aren’t you?”<br/>
He looks at a loss for how to reply. “Uh, no?” he stammers.<br/>
“That so? Then do you have a bunch of vampire friends?”<br/>
”I might. How would you know, anyway?”<br/>
“I don’t. That’s why I’m asking. Bet you don’t hang around much with mortals.”<br/>
“That’s--”<br/>
“In fact, I remember you saying you’re alone. Didn’t you say that? I feel like you said that…”<br/>
“You’re not gonna give up, are you?”<br/>
“No,” I admit. “I’m not. I’m done with normal life, Mungo. Now that Plato’s gone, I’m starting fresh again. Tomorrow I’ll be back at my lower-than-low-paying job, hooray! Everything will be back to normal. But I’m bored with normal. I don’t want normal around anymore. It’s gotten me nowhere.”<br/>
He looks at me with a serious expression, concern and confliction rolled into one.<br/>
“You actually care about me, Mungo. You told me earlier, and you literally saved my life. Let me pay you back. Let me give you the life you saved. I can end your loneliness. I can stay with you through the night and be by your side… well, forever!”<br/>
“You wouldn’t like it, Misto.”<br/>
”Don’t tell me what I will and won’t like. Just tell me your concerns. I’ll tell you whether they’re justified or wrong. Go ahead.”<br/>
“For one thing, no more daylight.”<br/>
”I’m a night owl as it is.”<br/>
“For another, no more food.”<br/>
“I prefer drink.”<br/>
“You have to hurt people. No matter how they beg, no matter how wrong it is, if you don’t, you’ll die.”<br/>
“I can live with that. What else?”<br/>
“You better make sure you like this world, because you’re gonna be sticking around for a long time.”<br/>
“Might not be my favourite place, I’ll admit - but you being with me makes up for it.”<br/>
“And… and there’s no going back. Once my teeth pierce your neck, you can’t pull out. I won’t let you.”<br/>
”I wouldn’t dream of it.”<br/>
He breathes out, looks to the fireplace again. “Are you absolutely, one-hundred percent positive this is what you want, Misto?”<br/>
“I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been absolutely, one-hundred percent sure about anything, Mungojerrie.”<br/>
At this, he lifts me off his lap and stands. He turns, kneels by the couch, and stretches out his hand. “Once you shake on it, that’s it. The deal is signed and sealed.”<br/>
I wrap my small hand around his, squeeze it tight. “And delivered.”<br/>
His fangs protrude from beneath his lips and he leans close to my neck, ready to bite, when I say, “Does it really hurt?”<br/>
Mungojerrie pulls his head back and I stare into his warm, caring eyes. “Only if I want it to hurt.”<br/>
”Well, do you?”<br/>
”I think you’ve been hurt enough today.”<br/>
I let out a small laugh. “Thanks, Mungo.”<br/>
He leans close, pressing his cool fangs against my neck. He flicks out his sandpaper tongue, wetting the flesh, and bites down.<br/>
It hurts a bit, but the pain is satisfying. If feels… good. Relieving.<br/>
Then I feel him suck at the punctures, feel as a trickle of blood runs down my neck. He moves a hand to behind my head, twirls the fur between his fingers. I don’t know if it’s to make me or him feel more comfortable, but I can say it works for me.<br/>
The last image that registers in my mind, moments before my death, is that of Mungojerrie grinning at me, satisfied. Then, just before my weakened flame burns out, I watch as he bites into his wrist and pushes it to my own mouth.<br/>
It’s the first time I taste another person’s blood.<br/>
It’ll be far from the last.</p><p>The End</p>
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